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Among the Missing: Family and War

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As Sebald says, I grew up in the shadow of war....

Barns And Ignobles

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None of us in the barn knew what to do about the lowing cows. Their slowly rising complaint started off as a half-hearted protest but soon gained in volume and unsettling portent.

Brenda Bossy Pants and her Friends

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Women have been mean to women since Biblical times, Sarah and Hagar vying for Abraham's loyalty, to the Archie comics with best friend rivals Betty and Veronica. Usually the conflict is over a man, but it could be merely envy or a…

Hand and Thumb

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Often we sit in silence and age. We are observers of dust, fashioning ourselves into antiques.

Automatic Typewriter

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Rowan’s arm burned and throbbed like the center of a neutron star as it went critical for minutes turned inside-out like hours. Standing in a wall, then huddled underneath the couch, she danced around the rim of consciousness, ripping at the seams of her

At the Christmas Carol Bar

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I’ll take my Christmas carols neat-

"they"--inspired by Lynn Beighley's "Ten Amazing don't-miss writing prompts (especially number 6)!--(but I chose number 2--thank

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52. they hate the word hate

My Alice

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My story begins where so many have ended, strapped fast to a cold table, just moments from a lobotomy needle and anything resembling the man that I am.

mermaid tale

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your words that came crashing over me/ so cold the clear shock was like salt water

Wattle and Daub - 3

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Walter met Danial at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. They didn't have much in common at first, other than AA, with Walter on the recovery side of treatment and Danial reluctantly just beginning.

Saga of the Sugar Ants

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They’re persistent, I’ll give them that. They keep coming. And coming and coming.

Shakespeare's Dark Lady -- John Hudson (review disguised as fiction)

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William Shakespeare (a surname that meant "wanker" back in the day, by the way)

Song of Another Country

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And she warms her hands on fresh-cut gizzards, And he forgets the taste of honeyed peaches

Graven Images

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Mother hated a crucifix. Graven, she said. Evidence that Catholics weren't saved, just stuck in ceremony. Jesus had risen and anyone who had to pray in Latin, count beads or confess to robed men who took orders from a monarch didn't know…

from: The Great San Francisco Poetry Wars

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I got on the Greyhound Bus at 11 a.m. and sat by myself staring out the window. I could see the reflection of my own dark beard in the window, a 27 year-old man with a huge poem bursting my heart, gasping to get out into the bright lit-up world out there,

Herd

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We may think about so many things and thoughts about rain. We may think about where it is going, where it comes from.

point

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Confessions of a Cursing Librarian

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Under no circumstances can you say "fuck" when you're working in a public library. Especially in the junior room.

If. You. Speak.

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The one at dusk is not the one you met this morning. That one's gone like a head in the window.

True Stories About False Dancers

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The world is a mighty funny place. It spins wildly and we are held down by its strong ghostly gravity. We're still able to communicate with one another over morning coffee and delicious cake donuts dipped in chocolate. Some of us used to keep…

Notes

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just want to write a music note rap my hands all over my throat jump into the city to stay afloat gotta build me a damn big boat

From This Distance

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Yes, I can imagine it now/ how we could each disappear completely/ connected only through memory's fault lines/

All the Places

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we went to together are now, according toyou, not to be believed. A memory of athought of a memory, of an arrow. There isno earth. There is no sun. There are no stars. All theplaces we went to together are to be paused,allowed to fade into never. The river is to be…

Ants

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The fettuccine is a disaster. Mini-ants have invaded the container. Barry spots them in the boiling water after pouring in the pasta, not much more than floating black specks, but too many to ignore. He dumps out the pasta and returns to the closet to…

The Hour of the Wolf

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Beneath an opal moon, the open field and wilderness across it look immersed in varying shades of blue. A strong night howler blows across a little girl's face as she walks the field as if in a trance; her whole visage framed against the backdrop of this very act …

Dig

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Every morning, the children dig holes for their parents. This is both necessary and beneficial: the kids need to dig and the parents have to be buried.

Borgo Was 29 on His Birthday

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Borgo said 1979/So Borga remembered 1979/for him, just in case,/for what if:/ a driver license/or an act of god/or a marriage license/or even a lease/for an apartment/you never know, she said/ so he said, okay/you remember,/so she did.

Out of Time

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I was so high on the not knowing, I thought, you will love me for my confusion. And so I allowed myself to reach further inward than either of us felt comfortable. I imagined a delicious vanilla pudding at the core of my exploration, sweet and satisfying enough for me to…

Children

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This was a dream in which I didn’t know fear.

Seattle November

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He ate husks of bone and old paper scraps with yesterday's headlines, blowing down the street like tumbleweeds now at four o'clock in the morning.He wrapped himself in an old army coat against the November winds as he tramped back and forth, back and forth, up the ten…